how easy, to take the lungs for granted

By Amanda Nicole Corbin

when i try to find the man who resurrected 

the world’s smallest waterlily i instead find

there are some things i don’t want seen 

coming out of me when i die. like the past. like

a man who died. the last thermal lily was gnawed

to extinction by a german rat, but a man listened to

my sleeping shields, clutched coins, everything 

except my past-self, every bandage inside

the hot springs and tore this tiny flower 

from the past like broken bread, like scattered seed

the saviors of this world help me sharpen 

the way i carry myself through uncharted waters: 

i had searched man saves smallest lily pad 

from dying, instead i received california man died 

i swim past every dark throat of every well where

i tossed down my wasted voice, my shoulders heavy 

trying to save drowning kids he had never met.

carlos magdalena could not get past his obsession

with small phantom feet i could have carried 

into a better sunrise. but the past is the past

and, thus, the thermal lily lives on. 

but if the past has taught me anything, it’s 

not everything ends in bloom. 

and now i thirst into inspiration;

how a swimless man can spot drowning kids, 

unravel his past, throw turban twisted like hope

into uncertainty. manjeet singh was an age 

not far removed from when i too was a fresh face

and, even after all this, we still discover a new

town of thermal lilies tucked inside another spring

addiction—a time and place when every river 

looked to me a deep but final breath.

About the Author

Amanda Nicole Corbin is an award-winning Ohio-based poet who has had her work published or forthcoming in The Notre Dame Review, Contemporary Verse II, The London Magazine, Door is a Jar, Palette Poetry, and more. She is the winner of the 2025 Mississippi Review Poetry contest and her work was nominated for Best Microfiction 2024 & 2025. Her debut full-length collection, addiction is a sweet dark room, was published by Another New Calligraphy in 2024. You can find her playing Magic the Gathering or on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky.